#russian nationals 2018

[figureskatingcostumes]

Alena Leonova’s short program costume at the 2018 NHK Trophy, 2019 Cup of Russia Final and 2019 Russian Championships.

(Sources: 1, 2 and 3)

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

On 7/31/2019 Trump has a private meeting with Putin. On 8/3/2019, just 3 days after his private meeting with Putin, Trump issues a request for a list of top US spies. By 2021 the CIA reports an unusually high number of their agents are being captured and/or being murdered. During the search executed at Mar A Lago the FBI find more documents with lists of U.S. informants on them.

A Timeline

• FBI wiretapped Russian gambling ring headquartered at Trump Tower for two years - March 21, 2017

• Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador - May 15, 2017

• Trump, Putin Meet For 2 Hours In Helsinki - July 16, 2018

• Rand Paul Goes To Russia And Delivers Letter For Trump, Marking Our Era Of Irony - August 9, 2018

• Following the Money: Trump and Russia-Linked Transactions From the Campaign to the Presidential Inauguration - December 17, 2018

• The US extracted a top spy from Russia after Trump revealed classified information to the Russians in an Oval Office meeting - September 10, 2019

• Trump’s Loose Lips Force US to Extract Spy From Kremlin - September 10, 2019

• Was Mar-a-Lago Trespasser a Tourist or a Spy? A Judge Said Her Story Didn’t Hold Up. - November 25, 2019

• Trump downplays massive cyber hack on government after Pompeo links attack to Russia - December 19, 2020

• Russia has been cultivating Trump as an asset for 40 years, former KGB spy says - January 29, 2021

• There was Trump-Russia collusion — and Trump pardoned the colluder - April 17, 2021

• Longtime GOP operatives charged with funneling Russian national’s money to Trump, RNC - September 20, 2021

• Captured, Killed or Compromised: C.I.A. Admits to Losing Dozens of Informants - October 5, 2021

• Files Seized From Trump Are Part of Espionage Act Inquiry - August 12, 2022

• Ex-Clinton aide implies 'President of France' file found at Trump's home during Mar-a-Lago raid could be valuable to Putin as 'kompromat' - August 13, 2022

• Inventing Anna: The tale of a fake heiress, Mar-a-Lago, and an FBI investigation - August 22, 2022

• Russians used a US firm to funnel funds to GOP in 2018. Dems say the FEC let them get away with it - October 30, 2022

• Trump makes shocking comments about trusting Putin over US 'intelligence lowlifes' - January 31, 2023

• Russia's Prigozhin admits links to what US says was election meddling troll farm - February 14, 2023

• GOP operative sentenced to 18 months for funneling Russian money to Trump- February 17, 2023

• Trump allegedly discussed US nuclear subs with foreign national after leaving White House: Sources - October 5, 2023

• 'So appalled': What witnesses told special counsel about Trump's handling of classified info while still president - April 24, 2024

🤔🤔🤔

[1americanconservative]

Peter Goodgame

ptrsoSedno9708ff6u g9a50gge la 6it2a1Mtsya312i7YfA3er:14dig0  · 

For three years, Volodymyr Zelensky has been America’s darling, a khaki clad symbol of defiance, pleading for billions in aid and NATO’s embrace amid Ukraine’s self inflicted war.

To many well-meaning Americans, he’s a hero battling overwhelming odds. But behind the curated image lies a far uglier truth, a stooge comedian turned president, propped up by a criminal oligarch, surrounded by cronies, and presiding over a regime of corruption, repression, and broken promises.

This is the real Zelensky, an actor playing a role he’s woefully unfit for, that was proven yesterday in the oval office.

As Ukraine spirals deeper into chaos and its brutally harvested conscript army collapses in retreat, it's important that decent Americans understand who and what this man really represents.

Let's start with Kvartal 95, The Oligarch’s Launchpad, Zelensky’s story starts not in politics but comedy. Born in 1978 in Kryvyi Rih, he co-founded Studio Kvartal 95 in the 1990s with a group of friends that had hit it big by the 2000s, ironically their big breaks were made in Russia, performing in Russian and focusing on Russian and Ukrainian political and cultural life. The key to all this success? Ihor Kolomoisky, a billionaire ukrainian oligarch with a laundry list of crimes, including fraud, money laundering, and brutal violence. Kolomoisky then owned 1+1, the TV network that handed Zelenskys Kvartal 95 a national platform starting in 2012. He didn’t just offer airtime. He bankrolled Zelensky with cash, security, and legal and criminal muscle. This wasn’t mentorship. It was a transaction. Kolomoisky, later sanctioned by the U.S. for “significant corruption,” saw Zelensky as a pawn in his game. By 2019, when Zelensky ran for president, Kolomoisky’s DNA was all over the campaign providing vehicles, lawyers, bodyguards, and a media blitz. Zelensky was never an outsider; he was a "made man"

This is where it gets almost unbelievably bizzare. In 2015, Zelensky starred in "Servant of the People," a hit satire aired on Kolomoisky’s 1+1 channel, where he played a teacher turned president railing against corruption.

Ukrainians, tired of the endemic corruption in the post Soviet state, lapped it up. Then, in 2018, his Kvartal 95 crew decided to turn fiction into reality, registering a political party called, you guessed it, "Servant of the People." It had absolutely no manifesto, no policies, and no plan of action, just a TV title and Zelensky’s face.

Running in 2019, Zelensky promised to end corruption and the Donbas civil war, which had erupted after the CIA backed Maidan Coup, winning in a landslide thanks to Kolomoisky’s media machine. An actor who played a president on TV was now remarkably in the real job.

Zelensky didn’t waste any time handing power to his showbiz pals. Ivan Bakanov, a Kvartal 95 co-founder, became head of the SBU security service with no experience. Serhiy Shefir, another comedy crony, took a top aide role, no experience. And then there’s Andriy Yermak, a film producer turned Zelensky’s right-hand man, now head of the Presidential Office, dubbed Ukraine’s “shadow president.” Yermak, physically and intellectualy towering over Zelensky, controls policy and access, a fixer running the show while the president flounders. These weren’t appointments based on merit. They were loyalty hires, a Kvartal 95 clique utterly unfit for a grossly dysfunctional war-torn nation.

Zelensky’s laughable anti-corruption pledge met reality in 2021 with the Pandora Papers. The leak revealed he and his inner circle,including Bakanov, were funnelling cash to Kolomoisky with Zelensky stashing millions offshore.

Zelensky swore to end corruption and the Donbas war. Instead, he’s delivered more of both, a million lie Dead, the free Media crushed, billions stolen, languages and religion banned. This criminal is no hero. No Churchill. And no friend of America. He should be treated accordingly.

Thanks for reading.

https://x.com/BowesChay/status/1895887898106323076...

[beardedmrbean]

Adair, Iowa, had a population of 794. So, it seemed suspicious when its three-person police department asked regulators to buy 90 machine guns, including an M134 Gatling-style minigun capable of shooting up to 6,000 rounds of ammunition every minute. 

Federal agents later discovered Adair's police chief, Bradley Wendt, was using his position to acquire weapons and sell them for personal profit. A jury convicted Wendt earlier this year of conspiracy to defraud the United States, lying to federal law enforcement and illegal possession of a machine gun. Wendt is unapologetic and has appealed his conviction. 

"If I'm guilty of this, every cop in the nation's going to jail," Wendt told CBS News just days before a federal judge sentenced him to a 5-year prison term. Wendt's crimes appear to be part of a nationwide pattern.

A CBS News investigation found dozens of law enforcement leaders — sheriffs, captains, lieutenants, chiefs of police — buying and illegally selling firearms, even weapons of war, across 23 U.S. states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., from the Deep South to the Midwest, Northeast and California coast. 

A nationwide review of government audits and court records over the last 20 years uncovered at least 50 cases of police illegally selling their weapons online, through dealers, out of their homes or the back of their cars. In many cases, the weapons were sold to gun enthusiasts, often at steep markups as high as 10 times what they were bought for. 

In several cases, the guns wound up in the hands of violent felons and were used to commit crimes including drug trafficking, international arms dealing and, in one case, the fatal shooting of a 14-year-old boy attending a high school football game. 

In 2011, federal agents busted a smuggling ring out of New Mexico involving a police chief, mayor and village trustee who delivered automatic firepower and tactical gear to a Mexican cartel.  

A decade later, prosecutors uncovered a multistate conspiracy linking a sanctioned Russian arms dealer with three police chiefs, one sheriff and a Delta Force veteran who sold machine guns directly to a criminal trafficker. All of them pleaded guilty. An additional alleged co-conspirator, who worked as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, denied wrongdoing and his case is proceeding to trial. 

Nearly 26,000 guns were traced from American crime scenes back to a government agency, law enforcement or the military between 2017 and 2021, the most recently available data, according to a report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It isn't known how many of those were lost, stolen or sold. However, when government auditors investigated firearms that law enforcement agencies reported missing over a 15-year period, the General Services Administration Inspector General found that more than two-thirds had not gone missing at all but, rather, were inappropriately sold or traded —including Uzis and grenade launchers that were never recovered.  

Meanwhile, a separate Government Accountability Office audit in 2018 found $100 million worth of guns and ammunition bought by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was unaccounted for. In response, ICE said that it improved how it would keep track of its inventory going forward; there was no follow-up about the weapons that were already missing. ICE did not respond to CBS News' request for comment. 

Of the 58 cases CBS News identified where law enforcement officers were criminally charged with illegally selling their weapons, 56 of them either admitted guilt or were convicted; two have denied wrongdoing in ongoing cases. 

Those cases are just the tip of the iceberg, according to interviews with half a dozen former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents who worked directly on these investigations. Several career agents shared anecdotes about letting police departments off with warnings after repeatedly finding their service weapons in the hands of private citizens. The agents explained that prosecutors have been generally reluctant to charge these cases, and the bureau stated that "it is our goal to educate, not investigate," according to a 2017 law enforcement memo obtained by CBS News. 

"We're not looking to prosecute fellow law enforcement officers," said Eric Harden, former special agent in charge of the ATF's Los Angeles field division.  

Harden authored the 2017 memo, which flagged a "growing trend" of "officers purchasing and then selling [restricted] firearms...for profit." The memo warned that anyone doing this was functionally acting as a straw purchaser in violation of at least two federal laws.  

Harden told CBS News that if officers persisted after being warned, or if their weapons were traced to a crime, they should be held accountable. "If we don't do this, then it'll be turning a blind eye and saying officers are above the law."  _______________________

Harden wrote the memo after his intelligence unit traced an outlawed pistol seized in a narcotics bust to a recent purchase by a beat cop in Pasadena, California. Now retired, Harden still remembers that officer crying on his shoulder when federal agents showed up to arrest him for illegally selling more than 100 weapons out of his home. The officer argued at the time that he didn't know he was breaking the law, but he later pleaded guilty. He served less than a year in federal prison and paid a $10,000 fine but was allowed to keep his Porsche and Alfa Romeo. 

On the other side of LA County, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer, with secret-level security clearance, was operating an even more egregious gun-running scheme that went on for 20 years. He too eventually pleaded guilty, in 2019, after an undercover agent busted him selling weapons out of the trunk of his car. His stockpile at the time totaled more than 250 firearms, including 41 machine guns and two short-barreled rifles. 

The officer "betrayed his oath to uphold the laws of the United States solely to put more money in his pocket," the U.S. Attorney said in announcing the news of the officer's prison sentence. 

Several cases involved sheriffs and police leadership who used their positions in law enforcement to gain access to military-grade machine guns, short-barreled rifles and explosive devices like grenades, and then sold them in violation of federal law. 

Although the Second Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms, there are limits to the kinds of weapons people are allowed to possess. Post-1986, these weapons — known to the ATF as Class 3/Title II and to the gun industry as "posties"— have been restricted for official government use because of their deadly firepower. Many of them are battlefield weapons used by U.S. and NATO forces in conflict zones. Some ammunition can take out a helicopter or blow straight through an armored tank followed by a concrete building, out the other side, then explode, hitting targets 18 football fields away. These guns can spew hundreds of rounds each minute, faster than the speed of sound. 

"Congress knew almost 100 years ago, in the days of Al Capone, that fully automatic weapons were unusually dangerous," ATF Director Steven Dettelbach said a public address on Feb. 28, 2023. "They have no place in our communities." 

The government loophole, however, has been exploited by opportunists who recruit law enforcement conspirators to help them bypass the American machine gun prohibition, according to law enforcement records and court filings obtained by CBS News that include text messages, videos and wiretapped audio conversations between people who were either convicted of or admitted participation in these schemes. 

CBS News found a trail of activity in social media videos and online web forums frequented by firearm aficionados discussing how to entice law enforcement allies into this illicit trade, which can be highly lucrative. Amid a series of online conversations reviewed by CBS News, one poster suggested that after law enforcement acquired a $10,000 machine gun through the federal approval process, it could be worth $75,000 because it would be free of red tape. Wendt, the Iowa police chief, for example, at times earned more than a 90% profit margin, according to court records. 

"Here is a breakdown of who signs for me," advised another online user, identifying one police chief, one sheriff, one SWAT officer and one deputy sheriff with whom he said he attended high school. 

For police departments to get ahold of such high-powered weaponry, each one needs permission from the ATF. Even though it has been the law for more than three decades, the ATF only started vetting every machine gun application for the first time in January 2023 to confirm that a legitimate government agency was making the request.  

According to interviews with half a dozen longtime ATF officials who worked directly on these cases, the bureau typically does not assess the appropriateness of the weapons for a department or track where they end up. 

"There's no audits," said former Supervisory Special Agent Tim Graden, who worked at the ATF for more than two decades before retiring in 2022. "There was no second-guessing whatsoever. They weren't really — I don't want to use the word concerned, but I can't think of a better one." 

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives declined requests to comment.  

It's unclear how pervasive this is nationwide, but in Iowa alone over the past five years, the ATF did not deny a single law enforcement request for machine guns "based on suitability (or lack thereof)," according to court filings. By 2023, there were more than 1,200 machine guns registered to law enforcement across the state.  

To find out how that compares to other places, CBS News filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests with the ATF for details about the high-powered arsenal it's granted to public law enforcement over the past decade. However, the bureau denied those requests, stating that it considers that private tax information exempt from public disclosure. Last week, CBS News filed a lawsuit for the information. 

The proliferation of this high-powered weaponry is likely to become increasingly more relevant when President-elect Donald Trump takes office. During his first administration, Trump revoked an Obama-era executive order restricting the transfer of military equipment from the Defense Department to law enforcement nationwide. The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.

[political-us]

Since the 2024 election, President Donald Trump has made several false or misleading claims. Here are some notable examples:

1. Election Victory Margin: In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump claimed he won the 2024 election by “millions of votes,” describing it as a “massive mandate.” In reality, his electoral vote count was 312 to 226, a decisive but not unprecedented margin. 

2. Small-Business Optimism: Trump stated that post-election, “small-business optimism has soared a record 41 points to a 39-year high.” While optimism did increase, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Small Business Optimism Index reached its highest level since October 2018, not a 39-year high. 

3. Insulin Costs: He asserted responsibility for lowering insulin costs to $35 for Medicare recipients, accusing President Biden of taking undue credit. However, this price reduction occurred under the Biden administration. 

4. VA Choice Program: Trump claimed he implemented the Veterans Choice program, but it was actually signed into law by President Obama in 2014. 

5. Abortion Laws: He alleged that Democratic states are passing laws permitting the execution of babies after birth, a baseless and false claim. 

6. Gender-Affirming Surgeries: Trump falsely claimed that schools are secretly sending children for gender-affirming surgeries without parental consent. 

7. Ukraine Conflict: He suggested that the Russian invasion of Ukraine would not have occurred if he had been re-elected in 2020. Experts indicate that such events likely would have happened regardless of the 2020 election outcome. 

8. Hurricane Helene Response: Following Hurricane Helene in September 2024, Trump spread misinformation about the federal response, including false claims about fund misallocation and inadequate relief efforts. 

These instances reflect a pattern of misinformation from President Trump since the 2024 election.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Nearly as soon as the Bolsheviks took power, they began to execute anarchists and Socialist Revolutionaries, most of whom had fought alongside the Bolsheviks in the Revolution. They also purged elements of their own party deemed "anti-Soviet" or "counter-revolutionary." This state repression was well documented by the Soviet government, but here we have chosen to use journals and letters of those affected. Lithuanian-American Jewish anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman describe the Bolshevik betrayal: The systematic man-hunt of anarchists [...] with the result that every prison and jail in Soviet Russia filled with our comrades, fully coincided in time and spirit with Lenin's speech at the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party. On that occasion Lenin announced that the most merciless war must be declared against what he termed "the petty bourgeois anarchist elements" which, according to him, are developing even within the Communist Party [...] On the very day that Lenin made the above statement, numbers of anarchists were arrested all over the country, without the least cause or explanation. The conditions of their imprisonment are exceptionally vile and brutal. (Boni, 253)

[triptychgrip]

Time-Travel Ficlet, Part 1: Yuuri (25) meets Viktor (18)

“Those eyes! Those thighs! I might be ruined for other guys!”

Yuuri’s jaw dropped at the lilt of sing-songy English, and the fear that had snaked around his chest upon entering the room slipped away in favor of confusion. 

He stared straight ahead, frozen, at the sight of the lithe figure swaying in front of his and Viktor’s main medal/photo display.

If Yuuri didn’t know for a fact that Viktor was with Makkachin at the groomer’s, he might have just assumed his fiance had decided to surprise him by donning a wig. The intruder’s long, silky hair perfectly matched the shade of Viktor’s own, and the Russian national team jacket tied around their waist was the same one that Viktor wore, though rarely around their apartment. 

Before he could reclaim the voice that had died in his throat, the Viktor look-alike leaned forward and pressed a smacking kiss to the glass-covered photo from the 2018 Olympic Games medal ceremony. At the same time, their fingers lovingly ran over the printed caption: Japan’s Katsuki Yuuri takes gold over Kazakhstan’s Otabek Altin (bronze medalist), and OAR skater Viktor Nikiforov (silver medalist).

From the angle Yuuri stood, he could see the stranger had targeted a spot directly on his beaming face, dripping with tears as a Games officiant placed the gold around his neck. (He’d since stopped dreaming about that surreal moment, but for a solid three months after, it’d been the prime focus of his subconscious, even beating out dreams in which Viktor swam around naked in a gigantic bowl of katsudon, somehow still appearing seductive despite the bits of scrambled egg in his hair.)

Yuuri couldn’t help it; this intruder’s apparent infatuation with him was so strangely reminiscent of Viktor's that he giggled, involuntarily. Then clapped his hands over his mouth.

The stranger whirled around with fluid grace and swirls of pink began to bloom on his(?) cheeks, presumably from having been caught kissing an inanimate object in someone else's home. 

Yuuri felt his heart come to a complete standstill.

What the fuck?

These three words zipped through his head upon noting the striking azure hue of the intruder’s shock-widened eyes, and how they matched Viktor’s exactly.

As Yuuri’s gaze roved over his slim-hipped frame, he took in the slighter proportions of the body as compared to his fiance’s, the more curved shape of his eyebrows, and the way he held himself differently, his weight evenly balanced between both feet instead of favoring one side. Clearly, this was not the same body that had undergone knee surgery for a torn meniscus seven years ago. 

A cursory run-through of the teen Viktor images in his fanboy archive led Yuuri to believe that this…

…clone?

...expert impersonator?

...time traveler?

Well, whatever the case, Yuuri strongly suspected this Other Viktor was around 17 or 18. 

Of course, the most significant difference between his fiance and this stranger was the absence of any gold around the latter’s long, elegant fingers.

“It’s you!” Other Viktor cried, exultingly, swiveling his head back and forth between photo-Yuuri and real, petrified Yuuri (the latter still sweaty and flushed after ballet, and deeply regretting having worn the grotesque “Gnome on the Roam” t-shirt Phichit had jokingly bought for him a few Christmases ago).

He swallowed and nodded, haltingly. 

“Yes, that’s correct…I’m Yuuri,” he mumbled, in croaky Russian.

And then his heart began doing somersaults, because Other Viktor’s shocked features transformed in a split-second. His entire face lit up, and his lips broadened into that heart-shape that always made Yuuri feel like he was floating.

“Wow! This must be my lucky day!” the stranger cried, clutching both hands over his heart. “I’ll admit, at first I was a little dejected about the time travel thing, not to mention the state of my future self’s hairline, but never mind, that! It’s not everyday that I get to meet a fellow Olympic champion in the flesh! Especially one that’s as cute as you, and who speaks Russian.”

Yuuri’s mind reeled; so this really was a cosmic blip of time-travel!

Due to his bewilderment, he couldn’t find it in himself to review the words that came tumbling out of his mouth. 

“I don’t speak Russian as well as you, of course, but I minored in it in college,” he blurted out, knowing his sister likely would have given anything in the world to be present for this admission. “I thought it would help me understand your interviews.” 

As soon as Yuuri had divulged this extremely fanboyish tidbit, his ears went bright pink, radiating a scorching heat that he sort of wished would consume him in a fiery blaze. Then again, he remembered how absolutely ecstatic Viktor had been when he’d found this out, so…maybe the embarrassment would be worth it?

But to his horror, Younger Viktor’s face instantly crumpled, his features twisting into an expression of unmistakable heartbreak.

“I knew it,” he replied, his tone bitter and despairing. “I’m dreaming. There’s no way someone as perfect as you could take an interest in me.”

Yuuri’s jaw almost fell open due to the absurdity of such a sentiment, but he shuffled forwards, desperate to vanquish the look of defeat from the other's face; this might not be His Viktor, but no version of his love should ever look so sad. 

It felt cosmically wrong to Yuuri.

“You’re not dreaming,” he mumbled, but knowing words could only go so far, he edged closer and closer, eventually reaching out for Younger Viktor's hand.

Upon contact, he inhaled, sharply, and Yuuri actually winced at the sudden death grip around his fingers.

“Yuuri, judging by the fact that you’re here in my apartment…”

Younger Viktor trailed off, looking wrong-footed, but then quickly corrected himself. 

“Well, a version of my apartment, anyway. And, that you mentioned wanting to understand my interviews and how you’re holding my hand just right...” he continued, with an obvious tremor in his voice. “How do we know each other?”

—

I’ve had time travel on the brain for the last few few weeks, and in addition to working on a one-shot -- preview here -- where 28-year-old Yuuri meets his 18-year-old self (the latter brand-new to Detroit and very homesick), I also thought it’d be fun to write something where Yuuri gets to meet teen Viktor, too. 

I’m aiming to post a part 2 (and likely 3!) ficlet soon :)

[misfitwashere]

ROBERT REICH

FEB 20

Friends,

Trump’s startling remarks this week that Ukraine’s leadership “should have never started” the war in Ukraine, that Ukraine’s President Zelensky is a “dictator without elections,” and that the war “is far more important to Europe than it is to us” — signaled that the United States is prepared to jettison its European allies and switch sides to embrace Putin’s Russia.

This is despicable. 

Trump’s phone call with Putin last week also reaffirmed Putin’s view of the world — that Russia and the United States are “two great nations” that should not only negotiate Ukraine’s fate directly but also together address even weightier global affairs.

Just after the call, Trump posted that he and Putin had “reflected on the Great History of our Nations, and the fact that we fought so successfully together in World War II, remembering that Russia lost tens of millions of people, and we, likewise, lost so many! We each talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together.”

The phone call occurred on the same day, not incidentally, that Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, declared that the United States would not support Ukraine’s desire for NATO membership.

And on the same day that the Senate confirmed Tulsi Gabbard, widely seen as sympathetic to Putin, as the next director of national intelligence.

At last week’s Munich security conference, Vice President JD Vance — a man who refuses to say that Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election — accused Europe of abandoning the values of democracy by excluding the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) from government.

Vance’s bizarre comments came just days before Germany’s general election (Vance had earlier met the AfD’s co-leader Alice Weidel).

The AfD is closely associated with neo-Nazis. In 2017, Björn Höcke, an AfD party leader in the eastern state of Thuringia, complained that Germans were “the only people in the world who’ve planted a monument of shame at the heart of their capital” — Höcke was referring to the memorial to the victims of the Holocaust — and that Germany needed “nothing less than a 180-degree turnaround in the politics of remembrance.”

In 2018, AfD party leader Alexander Gauland dismissed “Hitler and the Nazis” as “just a speck of bird shit in over 1,000 years of successful German history.”

In 2023, AfD politicians met with other far-right extremists to discuss an “overall concept, in the sense of a master plan” for the “remigration” of “migrants” to their countries of ethnic origin — no matter whether those migrants were asylum seekers, permanent residents, or German citizens.

The AfD wants to end German military aid to Ukraine and restart the Nord Stream pipelines through which Russia used to supply Germany with natural gas.

So what is Vance doing endorsing the AfD? Why has Musk also promoted the AfD on his X platform? Why is Trump bashing Ukraine and Zelensky and embracing Putin’s view that Ukraine started the war?

Connect these dots. The Trump-Vance-Musk regime wants to empower the nationalist far-right in Europe and side with Russia over Ukraine in order to divide European democracies and weaken the Western alliance — and strengthen Putin and the global oligarchy. 

This potentially emboldens further Russian military incursions like the 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine.

Commentators in Moscow are claiming that the American-led effort to isolate Russia over Ukraine has ended and are celebrating Trump’s support for Russia’s narrative about who started the war in Ukraine.

After Trump’s phone call with Putin, Russia’s main stock market index jumped 5 percent to its highest point since last summer, and the ruble gained against the dollar to its strongest level since September.

Make no mistake. The Trump-Vance-Musk regime is not only undermining democracy in the United States. It is also laying the foundation for undermining democracies around the world.

Since the end of World War II, liberal democracies have stuck together — led by America. On the opposite side have been authoritarian states, led mainly by the Soviet Union, followed, after the demise of the Soviet Union, by Russia and China.

But all this is rapidly changing. Both Russia and China have morphed into oligarchies, run by small groups of extraordinarily wealthy people.

America has also been moving from a democracy to an oligarchy — and is doing so at lightning speed under Trump, Vance, Musk, and their billionaire buddies. 

The new poles of international power are coming to be global democracies versus a global oligarchy. The United States is emerging on the side of global oligarchy.

When Trump was sworn in as president for the second time, he was joined by tech CEOs, business leaders, and financiers — all of whom are among the richest men in the world.

Trump, Vance, Musk. and Putin are making the world safe for oligarchy.

[flowerbloom-arts]

1, 14, 15 and 16 for the simpsons OC asks! ♥

@paranormal-librarian

1 – How did you discover the show in the first place? Did it inspire you to create an OC right away, or later on?

I think I've always been mildly aware of the Simpsons (given how prominent it is in meme circles on the internet) and I had a... Let's just say mild obsession with Steamed Hams during its hey day back in 2018-2019, it wasn't until July of 2024 when I started getting obsessed with it again after diving into Big Iron memes that I started getting curious about Chalmers and Skinner thanks to YouTube recommending me a clip of Chalmers showing off his Honda to Skinner, and then my darling mutual @hunsa-jars found the ship wiki for ChalmSkinn, and then I watched Road to Cincinnati, and the rest is historyyyy....... Yaaaaayyyyyy!!!

It took me a while to get inspired to make an OC because I have to look at the landscape of the media I'm getting into and see the sorts of characters that haven't been done yet. It always has to be a character I thought would be an interesting concept or worth a good story to be told.

My thought process with Delilah stemmed from looking at the assortment of love interests Skinner had and thought "You know, wouldn't it be funny if Seymour had like, one girlfriend who really really wanted to kill his mom for him, because Agnes is kind of the root issue of all his concrete relationship troubles."

And so, a sexy undercover Slavic spy is born! I wanted to base her off my own real life experiences with Slavic culture that aren't really represented in American media - so rather than making her Russian I chose to make her Yugoslavian, or rather, an ethnic Macedonian from Yugoslavia before it broke apart. Her fake identity as a Western German immigrant is also inspired by my own mom's childhood in Germany.

I thought basing her off the flirtatious female communist spy trope you see in mostly British media would make for an interesting foil to Skinner's character as a Special Forces soldier who fought in Vietnam. Skinner is depicted as more explicitly anti-communist in the comics, and a post-Cold War Romeo and Juliet layer on top of the whole murder girlfriend story would be an interesting way to explore Skinner's connection to his national identity and whatever ideology compelled him to volunteer for the war effort in the first place, as well as present a more complex look at the other side of the conflict.

14 – How would you consider your OC’s role in the show? Are they a major character like the Simpson family? Are they more likely to just be seen in the background? Or something in between?

Delilah (or rather, Матеа), would be a one-off love interest for Skinner, likely somewhere before he started dating Edna in season 8. And I KNOW the show has an epidemic of one-off love interests especially for female characters and god do I wish they'd utilize characters like Mindy or Gloria more besides relationship stuff but Delilah's backstory is not exactly built to withstand the test of time, just like Skinner's backstory as a Vietnam war veteran (in fact we're inching closer to a state where him being an Iraq war vet would be a more logical backstory, which is terrifying to think about. He's be born in 1980 if he's still 44 y/o today).

If you really want to push me to come up with an idea for a re-appearance I think she'd come back as a substitute teacher again after having broken out of federal prison under a new identity and then becoming a semi-regular background character for space nerd stuff.

15 – If they were in the show, what would be your OC’s main gimmick? Similarly, what would more likely happen to them in an episode?

Again, Delilah would be a one-off love interest, but in terms of gimmicks... I dunno, what would really count as a gimmick? I think her struggling to regain a regular life in the US as a Slavic immigrant would be a fun, if sad, turn of events. She'd probably resort to threatening violence at the mildest inconvenience too, I bet.

16 – What would an episode centered on your OC look like? Are there specific themes that would be explored through your OC's life?

I think Delilah would be introduced as a regular substitute teacher from formerly West Germany filling in for Edna or Hoover because they're sick or hungover or in some other kind of school-ditching nonsense, or perhaps the school finally gains the budget to add an actual specialized teacher to the language lab, it doesn't really matter.

The episode continues with Delilah trying to seduce Skinner into giving her "special benefits", like a pay raise ("Damn capitalists and their tiny wages for educators!") and then she finds out about Skinner's issues pertaining to his mom, like her freakish control over his love life (or lack thereof). Delilah makes the connection that she needs to get rid of the problem that's causing Skinner to not solve her problem, and that would be killing Agnes. And therein lies the main conflict of the episode.

The episode would be about Delilah trying to worm her way into Skinner's pants and convince him to get rid of Agnes from his life under the guise of regular after-school hangouts as friends or as staff bonding activities, only to be charmed by his nerdy sincerity outside of work which shifts the motivation to killing Agnes because she's such a horrible mother to this poor, sweet man.

She'd find out about his interest in space which she shares and they'd go to a space museum and have so much fun there. She'd be such a Bad Girl about it to contrast Skinner's goody-two-shoes attitude, breaking in after operating hours and guiding him by the hand and bypassing the security systems with whatever Russian technology she still has in her arsenal. And when they have a very touching moment looking at the stars and Delilah revealing some of her heart to him, she drops the suggestion to Skinner that he should dispose of Agnes, which he's immediately taken aback by and declines, awkwardly leaving her afterwards.

The sunk-cost fallacy of their relationship pushes Delilah to do the job herself, because really, this whole time, she's been projecting her own parental issues onto Skinner. Her own father was an abusive man and the government killing him for treason against the state was the best thing to have happened to her. She thinks Seymour should be afforded the same relief from his own mother, too.

He's such a simple man who seems happy and given determination to live by the simplest pleasures and she wants that. She wants the same thing. She's felt so lost since the USSR dissolved while she was doing espionage in the USA and has been stuck there ever since, she's always felt lost in her national identity since it was expected of her to conform to the identity of "Yugoslavic" which was dominated by the Serbs in her territory, and it was Macedonian nationalism that compelled her father to commit treason, after all, but now she has no identity to be proud of. Every nation she could call allegiance to has been put to shame, every name she's given herself was fabricated for the sake of those disgraced nations, and she can't even use her real name in fear of the enemy government punishing her.

She just wants a life spent on something that makes her genuinely happy, and spending time with a fellow nerd at heart was the happiest she's felt in a while. So yes, she'll kill Agnes even if she has to climb the roof and point a gun at her herself. Skinner's puppy eyes, however, convinces her otherwise, and he seems to express enough sympathy despite his panic to calm her down. But before she could make a change in her life, the police and federal agents find her and arrest her, never to be heard from again.

The Balkans have always been in a constant back and forth of territory and national identity, being invaded by empire after empire after united states and even still we fight eachother on borders, all the while the US has always stood firmly under that red, white and blue flag by comparison. It'd be a story about the identity crises of many slavs that had to deal with the aftermath of the Soviet Union falling apart in the 90s, having to deal with all the trauma that it brought and couldn't possibly heal soon enough.

Матеа had trained and lied and learned and killed and done so many things only for her nation to Lose, and that's such a massive blow to everything she built with her life. Everything she did suddenly became worthless, and she wanted to reach for and live vicariously through someone else who was happier by comparison, who had just one problem with a simple solution - if only true happiness could be achieved by killing one single person.

[henk-heijmans]

Giant otter is eating fish in water, Pantanal National Park, Brazil, 2018 - by Andrey Gudkov, Russian

[figureskatingcostumes]

Kirill Iakovlev skating to Nino Rota's Romeo and Juliet for his free program at the 2019 Junior Russian Championships and 2018 Junior Grand Prix Kaunas.

(Sources: 1 and 2)

[drarryspecificrecs]

Lights Camera Drarry 2023 : (fics only)

@lcdrarry || official masterpost (1) (2) || AO3 || ∑ = 39 works The Mod(s) : @celilasart & @erin-riwen + Banner © :

@celilasart (official banner)

@julcheninred & @m4g0rtz's Go the Whole Wide World (x) 🎬 Stranger than Fiction (2006)

@fantalfart's A Game of Horcruxes 🎬 Game of Thrones series (2011~2019)

—

the beating of our hearts (is the only sound) by @pineau-noir [E, 12k] 🎬 Pacific Rim (2013)

Black Sheep by @orange-peony [E, 10k] 🎬 Shaun the Sheep series (2007~2020)

By the Book by @hanniballevter [T, 14k] 🎬 The Proposal (2009)

Caribou Garden by @myrtlefics [T, 2k] 🎬 Nature documentaries

Count On Me by @shewhomustnotbenamed [G, 23k] 🎬 Put Your Head On My Shoulder series (2019)

Draco Malfoy's New Guide to Old-Fashioned Dating by caliowl [T, 52k] 🎬 How to Lose a Guy in 10 days (2003)

drag the past out into the light by @eevee [E, 20k] 🎬 Se7en (1995)

End of Beginnings by @louisissogolden [E, 5k] 🎬 All of Us Strangers (2023)

Eternalism is a Never Ending Day by @nondescript-mcu-blog [T, 25k] 🎬 Russian Doll series (2019~2022)

A Ferret, a ScarHead, a Weasel, and a Baby by @thusspoketrish [E, 91k] 🎬 Three Men and a Baby (1987) & Taken (2008)

First Impressions by @actuallymoon [E, 88k] 🎬 Pride and Prejudice (2005)

first, she fell by @dancingsparks [M, 1k] 🎬 Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

Happiness Seems to Be Loneliness by @newskyillusion [E, 29k] 🎬 Saltburn (2023)

The Heart of the Heart by @poljupci [T, 52k] 🎬 Howl's Moving Castle (2004)

Hope Is A Thing With Feathers by @adam-my-adam [E, 33k] 🎬 Thelma and Louise (1991)

Jackknife To The Heart by @sleepstxtic [E, 11k] 🎬 Mad Max: Furiosa (2024)

Leap Year by @youhavemyswordandmybow [M, 29k] 🎬 Leap Year (2010)

Listening to the Manor by @meandminniemcg [T, 11k] 🎬 Spirited Away (2001)

Love Will Abide by @dodgerkedavra [E, 41k] 🎬 The Last of Us series (2023~): Ep.3: "Long, Long Time"

Obscuro by @stratigraphywrites [E, 35k] 🎬 Love is Blind series (2020~)

Romancing the Dragon by @jtimu [E, 34k] 🎬 Romancing the Stone (1984)

Runaway Groom by skotini [T, 30k] 🎬 Runaway Bride (1999)

Slipping through my fingers all the time by @goblinmatriarch [T, 11k] 🎬 Mamma Mia (2008)

surviving the mist by @gnarf [M, 7k] 🎬 The Mist series (2017)

this strange effect by @dryrsheet [M, 30k] 🎬 Killing Eve series (2018~2022)

Twin Blades by lucio [T, 3k] 🎬 Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)

we were born to be national treasures by calledityellow [G, 4k] 🎬 Legally Blonde (2001)

White, Blonde & British by @sortofshea [E, 40k] 🎬 Red, White & Royal Blue (2023)

—

✔ other fests in 2024 ✔ fests in other years ✔ Lights Camera Drarry : 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019

[ravenkings]

A journalist targeted by a Russian spy ring said it had a list of "assassination methods" to kill him that was "beyond any imagination".

Christo Grozev told the BBC the group "fantasised" about his death, and talked about using a sledgehammer and even a "suicide bomber" to target him.

The Bulgarian, who has published several exposés on Russia with colleague Roman Dobrokhotov, said several incidents showed the pair were tracked across Europe and had agents "breathing down our necks".

He was speaking after three Bulgarian nationals were found guilty last week of spying for Russia one of the largest foreign intelligence operations in the UK.

Mr Grozev said that since the court case, Austrian police had reassured his children that this not could not happen again, adding that initially his family had been "shocked".

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Broadcasting House programme, he said the "list of imagined assassination methods" on his life "reads like a film noir".

He said one of the ways the spies "fantasised about killing me" was hiring an Islamic State group "suicide bomber and having him explode himself next to me in the street".

Mr Grozev said there was also a plan to kidnap him and "send me to a torture camp in Syria" while another man wearing a latex mask resembling him would fly to Russia on a commercial flight and be "arrested in front of cameras for full deniability".

"Another way was bludgeoning me to death using a sledgehammer", he said before adding that "the fantasy and imagination of these wannabe spies is beyond any imagination".

Mr Grozev said failures of Russian intelligence in the past meant that spying was being "outsourced" to non-professional spies.

He told the BBC that the fact they were using "non-professional" spies did not take away from the "intent to kill". The issue was that "wannabe spies" did not necessarily know how to de-escalate situations, he added.

He said he felt lucky to be alive given that he and his colleague were tracked by the spies for so long and the operation had been so well-funded. He and Mr Dobrokhotov were never on the lookout for EU citizens spying on them, but they had expected that Russian operatives would be observing them, he added.

The pair's work includes exposing Russia's role in the nerve agent attacks on then-Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020 and Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018.

Jan Marsalek, who instructed the spy ring on behalf of the Russian intelligence services, wrote in a message in December 2020 that Mr Grozev was the "lead investigator in the Navalny case".

A message sent by Marsalek to Orlin Roussev - who ran the UK-based group from a former guest house in Norfolk - said: "Personally I find Grozev not to be a very valuable target but apparently Putin seriously hates him."

After 2020, the spy cell followed the two journalists throughout Europe, spying on them on planes, in hotels and private properties.

On Friday, three spies were found guilty of spying for Russia in one of the largest" foreign intelligence operations in the UK.

In court, it came to light that operatives from the spy ring entered Grozev's flat in Vienna in 2022 "when my son was playing a computer game in his room", the journalist said.

He added: "I just don't want to think about what would've happened if my son decided to go out of his room during their burglary."

On Friday, Vanya Gaberova, 30, Katrin Ivanova, 33, and Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, were found guilty of conspiracy to spy. While the trio had day jobs as a beautician, a healthcare worker, and a decorator, the cell they were part of plotted to kidnap and kill targets, as well as planned to ensnare them in so-called honeytraps.

The methods they used were the sort of thing you would "expect to see in a spy novel", said the Metropolitan Police's Cdr Dominic Murphy.

[dreamcast641]

SCP OC: Claire Ekaterina Makarova

I decided to make an actual detailed post about Claire, finally. I created her in august 2018 and I got a lot of time to develop here and I'm really, really satisfied of how she turned out to be.

--------------------------------------------------------

GENERAL INFORMATIONS:

Full Name: Claire Ekaterina Makarova

Aliases/nicknames: Stoat (callsign), shortie, shortstack

Age: 26-30 years old

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/her

Sexual orientation: Demiromantic/demisexual and pansexual

Date of birth:November 2nd

Place of birth: Unknown but it's somewhere in the USA

Current residence: site 5c

Nationality: American with slavic origins

Spoken Languages: American English (main), Russian ( ONLY with her dad) and American sign language (ASL)

Affiliations/organizations: SCP foundation

Occupation: Mobile Task force Beta-7 ''Maz hatters'' operator, virologist/biologist when not on field, ISD (internal security department) agent.

Rank: unknown

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

APPEARANCE

BUILD: A bit chubby

— Claire is a buxom woman who has curves all over her body, wide hips and a slight bit of fat in her tummy.

— She particularly cares about her image, especially when it comes to taking care of her body.She trains regularly in the small gym made available by the site 5c, focusing on arms and legs, parts of the body that are fundamental to her for work. It takes muscle to hold a rifle that weighs almost half her weight on her so as not to wobble on the recoil.

-----

SCARS: All over her body

— Claire has many, if not too many, wounds all over her body. From cuts to bruises to burns and even gunshot wounds.

— Her little patient behavior and her indifference has led her over the years to participate in many fights, whether they are initiated by her or are part of her job, when it comes to fighting she has always been in the front row. Not caring about the size and danger of whoever is in front of her. This has led Claire to have countless wounds on her body, many of them being stab wounds, a gunshot on her right shoulder, a large burn on her left shoulder and as many bruises..

------

VOICE: silvery/soft spoken

— slow spoken and not too high voice but at times decisive when needed.

— It's almost as if her voice doesn't match her body. With her character like hers, those around her expect an annoying redundant high-pitched voice to split the eardrums. Hers is an almost calm voice, not too high and maternal.

-----

EYES: Grey/blue

— blue eyes so undersaturated they look gray.

— she inherited light eyes from both parents, but the mother's gene seemed to dominate between the two. Both have blue eyes but Claire's are less saturated, almost gray as opposed to her mother's, blue as ice

-------

FASHION: casual

— casual, doesn't really care for fashion.

— When she's not working, claire usually wears the first thing she finds in her closet, preferring loose-fitting clothes that don't show too much of her body shapes.

------------

More about her aspect:

-Claire has mixed vitiligo all over her body. It started when she was just 5 to 6 years old and it spreaded everywhere;

-Her vitiligo not only affected her skin but also her hair, eyelashes and eyebrow;

-She is only 5'1 ft or 154 cm in height.

FAVORITES

-Color: Black

-Food: Raw Salmon

-Drink: Chamomille with honey

-Song: Ecoute Cherie (vendredi sur Mer)

-Flower: Nightsky petunia

-Hairstyle: messy bun

------------------

PHOBIAS

-Autophobia: also called monophobia, isolophobia, or eremophobia, is the specific phobia or a morbid fear or dread of oneself or of being alone, isolated, abandoned, and ignored;

-athazagoraphobia: When a person has this condition, there is an extreme fear of being forgotten, or of not remembering someone or something. It may also include a fear of being ignored or replaced;

-Atychiphobia:is an intense fear of failure

-Arachnophobia: fear of spiders

-------------------------------------------------

PERSONALITY:

-Moral alignment: Chaotic Neutral

-Myers-Briggs: ENTJ-T

POSITIVE TRAITS

- Serious and efficient but also considerate in the role she covers inside the foundation walls: She makes everyone feel included in her squad no matter what. She is always willing to help them, no one is left behind.

-Observant...a bit too much. If there is something that her training with the ISD thought her is to be aware constantly of her sorroundings. No details is going unnoticed in her presence.

-Gentle and caring with close ones. She pours her heart with who she loves.

-Practical smart. Let's say that she is good at improvise when needed.

-Respected without using fear

NEGATIVE TRAITS

-Claire's past and experiences have led her to be inconsiderate of herself, and those closest to her tend to see it for how expressive she is, without needing her to be alone to show how she really feels. she is a woman with a thousand complexes, her self-esteem has been destroyed and under her feet. She can't be really sure about anything she does especially if it affects those around her too. She refuses any leadership position, unwilling to take responsibility for any deaths that may occur under her leadership.

-So low is her self-esteem that she can't even see the value of her life, risking it every day to protect others at the expense of her own. She has seen death right in her eyes so many times that she no longer fears it. She is not afraid to die but at the same time the idea of being forgotten and replaced, as she has already seen happen to her other deceased colleagues, puts a shiver down her spine.

-Claire gets heated pretty easily, leading her to not think straight when she is outraged.

-She tends to distance people from herself due to her trust issues. It really takes time for her to open up to someone.

-Absolute stubborn. Claire does not listen when she is convinced of something.

TRIVIA:

-She absolutely love when her friends makes hand-made stuff for her. She keep them like it's the most precious thing in the world;

-It happens that Claire goes for some days to negaseattle to visit her adopted brother Ira and helping him with the clone kids (check more on Raddagher's author page on the wiki);

-She has a yellow ringneck parrot named banana. He is her emotional support animal;

-BPD (bordeline personality disorder) that she is getting treated for and is under enough control for her to be operative;

-She loves reading almost everything especially if it's related to her job;

-One hell of a cook. She is very, very good in the kitchen;

-She smells like peaches and chocolate;

-Aggressive and very skilled in combat. Knife is her specialization;

-Uses stealth, skills and the enviroment over the strenght;

-Good swimmer, loves using water to her advantage in fights by drowning or exhausting people;

-Survivor's guilt.

SUMMARY OF HER STORY (STILL NOT SO DONE)

It is not known for certain where Claire and her twin brother Dmitry were born, it is only known that they came to light somewhere hidden in the United States of America.

Raised in the hostile environment of the foundation but with the loving care of their mother Mandy Ross, a former nurse in the US Navy. Their father? Locked in the same site where they were born, metal walls separating this potentially dangerous man due to the toxic, potentially lethal nature of his body.

In the early years of their lives, the twins immediately reveal themselves as curious troublemakers, always looking for other children like them to socialize with and will end up bonding closely with one of them in particular: Ira Watts, whom they will consider for life as a brother.

Mandy, for reasons still unknown to them, decides to leave them and the foundation to join the GOC. it was this event that unleashed in her an immense fear of abandonment. Left to their own devices, Claire was the one she had to mature early to take care of her two brothers.

At just 14, the three were separated by the foundation to be introduced to their respective careers.

While Dmitry continued his medical and psychiatric studies, Claire had to stay on that site with Ira to begin her training to join one of the mobile task forces.

''Mobile Task Forces (MTFs) are elite units comprised of personnel drawn from across the Foundation and are mobilized to deal with specific threats or situations that sometimes exceed the operational capacity or expertise of regular field personnel and — as their name suggests — may be relocated between facilities or locations as they are needed. Mobile Task Force personnel represent the "best of the best" of the Foundation.''

And with this clarification, let's say that the training Claire had to undergo was hard and exhausting. She pushed to her limits so many times by her serious and rigid mentor that she was assigned to reach high, real high expectations.

To be ''the best of the best'' she had to shed all of her blood and her will. She failed many times but thanks to this she also managed to learn from her mistakes and correct herself, perhaps becoming probably one of the best students on the site...if not for her rebelious behavior.

Training wasn't Claire's only focus in those years: she was studying biology and virology because of the task force she decided to join, the beta-7. Her knowledge will prove to be fundamental in the future.

Her training and studies ended as soon as they began. At just 22, claire was already serving as a member of mobile task force beta-7 at a different site.

During her years at the site, now with her brother Dmitry, the two were approached by a man from the Internal Security Department (ISD) who was determined to recruit them as they were loyal members of the foundation. The two naively accepted and it was that meeting and that assignment that led them to site 5c where they still reside nowdays.

SITE 5C STORY LINE

(coming soon)

[cottoncandytrafficcones]

10 Cool Jewish Women from Modern Day! Part 2 because I'm on a role

Liz Kleinrock, a self-described "Korean, Jewish, queer, transracial adoptee, antibias and antiracist nationally recognized educator, author, and consultant." Born in Korea, she was adopted by an Ashkenazi Jewish family in Washington D.C.. Involved in education, with a Masters in UCLA's Teacher Education Program, she has taught in California and D.C., and has also worked as a school librarian. In 2018, she received Learning for Justice's Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Loolwa Khazzoom, an Iraqi-American writer, journalist, activist, musician, and feminist. She was heavily involved in the Jewish feminist movement of the 1990s and is the founder of the Jewish Multicultural Project, which provides resources to Jewish communities about diversity in Jewish culture. She has also been involved in SOJIAC and JIMENA. Raised in California to an American Jewish mother and an Iraqi Jewish father, she graduated from Barnard College in 1991. She participated in a filming about the interplay of race and gender in America called The Way Home. She is the lead singer and bass player of Iraqis in Pajamas, a punk rock band that uses traditional Iraqi and Jewish musical elements.

Ariela Sofer, and Israeli and American operations researcher who is a professor of systems engineering and operations research, as well as a Divisional Dean, at George Mason Acamdey. She is a published author, with two books on Lineaer and Nonlinear Programming. Named as a Fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences in 2016, she is also a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial and System Engineers and the International Council on Systems Engineering.

Ayelet Newman, also known as Ayelet the Kosher Comic, is an Orthodox stand up comedian. Born to a secular Jewish family on long Island, she pursued a career in TV and film after high school, appearing in The Hebrew Hammer. She became a baalat teshuva in the early 2000s, when she quit acting and began pursuing comedy, performing only for women.

Adina Sash, a Brooklyn raised American Jewish activist and social media influencer, also known as FlatbushGirl. Holding a Master's degree in Medieval literature from Brooklyn College, her online activism was started after receiving sexist comments. In 2017,s he launched a social media campaign called #FrumWomenHaveFaces that raised awareness of the erasing of women from Orthodox newspapers and magazine, gaining the support of Mayim Bialik (Jewish actress).

Tova Ben-Dov, former president of the Women's International Zionist Organization and former vice president of the World Jewish Congress, as well as a board member for the Jewish Agency for Israel and the International Alliance of Women. She joined WIZO as a young mother, and worked in the Chair of Women's Training Department of WIZO Israel. In 2011, she was awarded Honoree of Tel Aviv, and in 2016 the title of Honorary Fellow of the World Zionist Congress.

Kat Graham, an American actress, singer, dancer, author, and activist. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, to an Americo-Liberian father and a Polish and Russian Jewish mother. Co-founder of he wellness company Modern Nirvana, she had released work focusing on self-help. She speaks English, French, Spanish, and some Hebrew and Portuguese. She is known for her role as Bonnie Bennett on the CW show The Vampire Diaries, and has released two extended plays and four studio albums. She has done work as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency, inspired by her family's history.

Dafna Bar-Sagi, an Israeli born cell biologist and cancer researcher at New York University School of Medicine. She is member of the scientific advisory boards, including the National Cancer Institute. A graduate of Bar-Ilan, where she earned her undergraduate and master's in neurobiology, she received her PhD in neurobiology from the State University of New York as Stony Brook. Her research focuses on the nature of he Ras oncogene and how Ras signaling leads to tumor development. She has been the vice dean for science, chief scientific officer, and executive vice president of NYU Langone Health.

Malika Kalontarova, a Tajikistan born Bukharian dancer known as the "Queen of Tajik and Oriental Dance." Rebellious as a child, she has always identified as Jewish, despite Antisemitism in Tajikstan. Trained by Ghaffor Valamatzoda and Remziye Tarsinova, she moved to Queens in 1993 where she opened up her own dance studio.

Jazz Jennings, an American spokeswoman and Queer activist. An honorary co-founder of he TransKids Purple Rainbow Foundation, which her parents founded in 2007, she is one of the youngest documented people to be recorded as transgender. She was accepted into and currently attends Harvard University. In 2013, at only 13 years old, she founded Purple Rainbow Tails, while engaging in a battle with the USSF to allow her to play on a girls' soccer team. She is a published author, and in 2014 was named one of the top 25 most influential teens. She has voiced several characters in an animated shows, and starred in an Amazon Prime movie.

[stateofcharles]

Interview with Amina Zaripova on her new job in China (source - translating a translation!)

"The Chinese were shocked": Mamun's former coach - about working in a new country, professional freedom and benching. Zaripova accepted an offer to work with the Chinese national team via social media

The Chinese's victory in rhythmic gymnastics group AA in Paris 2024 was not a sensation, although rhythmic gymnastics in the country is only beginning to really gain popularity, five-time world champion Amina Zaripova said in an interview with RT. In her opinion, in the near future Chinese athletes have a good chance to achieve high results in individual competition. The coach also told how she decided to work in a foreign country, explained why she was afraid to commit herself to a long-term contract and noted that the new rules make this sport insanely interesting.

At what point in your life did the subject of working in China arise? It arose very trivially and completely by accident. At the very end of 2023, I was with my son abroad, flying to him for the New Year holidays. One day I was browsing social media and saw information in my personal messages that representatives of the Chinese rhythmic gymnastics team wanted to contact me.

Did you know any of these people? No. China has an amazing recruitment system. The enquiry does not come to the sports federation, but is a kind of headhunting: like, here are some people looking for a coach, would you like to consider this offer? I responded to this post more for the sake of fanfare.

So you didn't think the offer would be serious at all? No, absolutely not. Especially since in the second message they asked me to send my CV. I thought, ‘That's normal. They ask me for a CV too.’ But I sent some text that a journalist friend helped me to compose and translate. And somehow everything was wrapped up very quickly….

What conditions did you set on your part? The main thing was a guaranteed opportunity to perform with Chinese athletes at international competitions. In our sport, China is famous for the fact that its gymnasts rarely go anywhere at all - and they perform very rarely, and even then within the country. So for me it was a fundamental moment.

It seems that while staying in Russia, you suffered greatly without a real job. It would be wrong to say that. I left the Russian national team consciously. After Rita Mamun and a few years later Dasha Trubnikova (champion of the 2018 Youth Olympics. - RT) finished their careers, I got a good girl, Nicole Rimarachin Diaz. We even managed to win competitions for children of pre-junior age with her. But I left her to Irina Alexandrovna Viner and went into freelancing. I took care of my school, travelled with master-classes. I felt a little tired: there had been too much big sport in my life. Plus I had my fourth child and was trying to finally become a real mum. That was the most important thing in my life at the time.

To be honest, I still can't comprehend it: leaving the Russian team to be able to spend morte time with family and suddenly such a change! Let's start from the fact that my children are adults already. Arseniy is 21, Afanasy is 16, but he is an indipendent boy too. The girls stay with me.

And how did your husband react? Fortunately, both he and I are totally crazy in our profession. So Lesha said we should at least try it. so that we would not regret it later. And in the meantime, see how many pros and cons there were. Pros were more and the decision was taken anyway. Especially because I understood myself how much I was missing real work. I felt it in a particularly brutal way whilst watching the Paris Olympics. I remember sitting in front of the screen and not being able to erase this thought: I want to go back.

When talking about pros, do you mean being able to compete internationally? Not just that. The absolute freedom of coaching, too. Profession-wise, I've never been so free.

I have a very good contract, which states that I can leave the country should personal necessities arise. Generally, when we started contract talks and they discovered I have four children, they were shocked. Especially considering that in China, for a long time, normality was having one child, rarely two.

I thought those times were over... Such things stay in the mentality for a long time. Even a two-children family in China is rare. I haven't seen anyone with three. It's surprising, actually. As I've heard whilst being in the country, after COVID the government is even ready to pay young families so that they have children, but young adults don't want to.

If you have such a good contract, why not signing it immediately for the whole four years, until the next Olympics? I was offered to, but I chose otherwise: why binding myself to it? If everything keeps going smoothly, we'll simply extend the contract. A contract is, up to a certain extent, a picture. Maybe I think this way because I've never been a contract kind of person. Now I have to consider many shades. For instance, I cannot post photos on my social media accounts without permission. I posted them once and they told me no. I'm also forced to approve everything regarding the national team. If at some point I want to go home for a while, I need to give a 3-week notice and find a replacement. I have to get used to all these details.

How is your work in China structured? My job description says I'm the head coach of the whole national team, including junior and pre-junior teams. I only work on the individuals. The groups work is coordinated by Nastya Bliznyuk.

How competitive can Chinese gymnasts be in individual competitions on a world-level? There's a very talented girl, Lulu (Wang Zilu), with whom Ukranian coach Olena Diachenko has been now working for some years. We met at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games, when Trubnikova won, and last year Lulu became the first Chinese gymnast to ever qualify for the individual Olympic final and to enter the top 10. Which means, last year she was a true competitor for all the best gymnasts. Obviously, I don't expect to train her in any way: Diachenko and she work well together and they only ask me for some tips, nothing more. Consequently, my current job is recruiting other gymnasts to support Wang and create a team she can lead.

At the Olympic Games in Paris, I remember the group gold medal as a great sensation I don't think it was a whole sensation: after all, the Chinese group was already on top of the game two years before Paris, at the World Championships in Sofia. And what is Olympics, we know it very well since Rita Mamun, when everyone bets on a gymnasts but another one wins. To me, the Olympics is a competition that doesn't have to do with reason, but with some sorts of manifestation of higher powers. Especially when it comes to groups. If in the individual championships before the Olympics everything is approximately clear, everything can still happen in the group competition. Whoever makes the fewest mistakes wins. Which naturally doesn't take away the unpredictability of the Chinese win.

Is Chinese rhythmic gymnastics similar to the Russian? Not at all. As I've already said, gymnasts don't really compete. There are two official competitions per year: the Chinese Championships and the Chinese Cup. That's how thy do it. It's incredible to me, discovering that people train to compete twice in their country. Nastya Bliznyuk made a huge effort so that her girls started to go to the World Cup and other international competitions. Again, differently from Russia, here there's no huge benching. You choose between five or six people, basically. Rhythmic gymnastics in China is just now becoming popular. But it's still far away from trampoline and artistic gymnastics.

I know that in these sports Chinese have been copying Soviet methods for many years. Is it still visible? They have their own training methods and, when I met the girls, it killed me, to be honest. I noticed for instance that after the general training, the girls stay at the gym to repeat the exercises. At the beginning I thought I was giving them too little work. But then I discovered that top athletes, including all those from all the national teams, have to regularly pass physical tests like push-ups, jumping, 3000m run.

When I discovered that my girls had to lift 30kgs whilst laying down, I cried, I felt so sorry for them. It was like lifting a wardrobe. Why? I tried to convince them it wasn't right. But they told me everyone does it. Artistic swimmers, weight lifters, volleyball players: everyone has the same set of exercises. If an athlete doesn't pass them for any reason, they can be expelled

I can imagine your state in that moment. I believe a sane mind cannot comprehend this. I still fight, explain that you cannot put a rhythmic gymnast on the same level as a volleyball player or a runner. This year, the weights were removed and the standards were somehow simplified. But, as a matter of principle, I don't go to the gym during these training sessions, because my heart breaks and I cannot do anything.

Are all Chinese athletes constantly under these conditions? Yes. In this sense, their system is basically the same as the USSR's

Do you also live in a sports center? As Nastya Bliznyuk, I'm also renting an apartment in Beijing. And the training takes place in the university.

Are you learning Chinese? I'm in the process, let's say

Is it your choice or something that was requested by your employer? I believe this is only basic respect for the country, for the girls I work with. Little kids don't understand English and I have to constantly explain some things, like "lift your head", "up your toes"... About this, in the first months this required a lot of my time and efforts. Now they already understand my English and Russian. I really like when they come to me at the end of the training and they say in Russian "Miss, I'm done with the session. Thank you!"

Will we see you at the World Championships in Rio this year? Surely. And before, the Junior World Championships in June. For China, this will be the first Junior Championships

Has rhythmic gymnastics changed a lot since you and Rita Mamun won the Olympics in Rio? Truly a lot. The rules change every four years for us. Gymnastics now is closer to me rather than to the one of 2022-2024, because there's more artistry. We have less DBs, only eight. But this doesn't make the sport easier. Firstly, you have to master these elements and secondly there's more focus on artistry, on the coreography. Every accent, every movement has to fit the rhythm, everything must work: the facial expression, the body. Combining all this in a program is really difficult. But these rules, to me, are incredibly interesting